Bitcoin Black Friday 2014: Mixed Fortunes?

Bitcoin Black Friday has come and gone, and the sales results in comparison to 2013 make for interesting reading.

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Bitcoin Black Friday has come and gone, and the sales results in comparison to 2013 make for interesting reading.

The event, held over the weekend of November 28–30 alongside the fiat-based version, saw a wide range of merchants offering exclusive discounts on goods and services to customers paying in bitcoins.

According to BitPay, which released preliminary highlights of trading activity for 2014, several major merchants saw considerable increases in sales. Gyft reported 62% more sales this year compared with Black Friday 2013, while the value of its purchases jumped 139%.

Elsewhere, Newegg “set personal records for total dollar value of purchases, as well as number of transactions,” BitPay reported, and precious metals platform Amagi Metals also recorded a new high for Bitcoin orders received.

“The recent Bitcoin Black Friday returned some encouraging results that demonstrate just how much the bitcoin ecosystem has grown and diversified since last year,” BitPay’s Tony Sakich commented when introducing the results.

Despite the buoyant summary, however, BitPay did not include further statistics from this year’s event, leading the community to speculate as to its true rate of success. TigerDirect, Adafruit and Namecheap were all described as seeing “notable volume on Black Friday,” but specific data was not mentioned.

External factors, such as the price of Bitcoin relative to the same time last year, most likely affected overall transaction amounts, despite BitPay’s merchant base having increased dramatically in the past 12 months.

However, Bitnet reports that over the Black Friday and Blue Monday period, a total of US$300 million was spent on Bitcoin purchases. Furthermore, cryptocurrencies were the ninth most popular medium for purchasing.

“With traditional Black Friday sales down 11% from last year, it’s […] important to recognize that bitcoin is being used for a variety of traditional products and services now. This Bitcoin Black Friday may signify a move forward and toward mainstream acceptance of bitcoin,” Sakich concluded.

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